60 Years After Independence, Nigeria Is Officially A Failed State

 60 Years After Independence, Nigeria Is Officially A Failed State

I was confronted earlier this year by one of my students. According to the student, I criticize a lot. She literally said that I present everything as bad. The student said this because of my many opinions against Nigeria, her politicians and policies which I believe are destructive to the people. 

In most of my quiet time, I pose this question to myself: Who would be in Nigeria and not condemn or feel irritated by the things happening in the country? Show me one, and I will show you a looter, criminal, terrorist, bandit and a murderer with a dead conscience.

And this brings me to the question of today. Do you have a government in Nigeria? Have you tried asking yourself this question? Do you know the importance of a government? As a citizen, do you actually know the benefits inherent in having a government? I doubt if most of us know these things; because if we do, we won't find it difficult agreeing to the fact that Nigeria is a failed state. 

For instance, a university student who is facing moments of uncomfortable strikes before graduation; a female student deliberately failed by her lecturer who would still order her to pay for a hotel room, and subsequently take advantage of her sexually in exchange for good grades; a student that graduated with excellent results, yet  find it difficult to secure a befitting job, can never attack my stance on Nigeria. One is tempted to ask if Nigerians learn at all. Do they understand the country they are into? 

It is the work of the government to provide an enabling environment that will create jobs. The government provides housing for the citizens. They provide water and electricity. They construct roads, hospitals and provide good healthcare services for the citizens. 

The primary responsibility of every government is protection of lives and properties. But you must ask yourself among all these things,  which is the Nigeria government providing for the citizens? Absolutely none. And you still have the mind to shout 'One Nigeria'? Some are even celebrating a useless 60 years of suffering, poverty, ineptitude and bloodshed.

In Nigeria, you see poor citizens with their shovels repairing federal and state roads, and begging drivers for peanuts. The rich employ the poor, mount them on the road to extort money from their fellow poor people. The rich gets richer, the poor gets poorer. Every corner in the streets of Onitsha is filled with street urchins, employed by either the politicians or influential individuals just to extort the poor. They beat people up on a daily basis.

When people say enough is enough, they mobilize some people among them to put their fellow poor people in check. The baptism of fire meted on Ike Ekweremadu in Germany was condemned by some online political butlers. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu saw the evils of the rich politicians against the poor masses, and asked that the wicked politicians be stoned. 

Surprisingly, the e~rats working for the politicians went mad. Stoning of politicians is bad and evil, but the same politicians looting and killing people aren't evil? The rich has found a way to keep using the poor against the poor. 

They have successfully weaponized poverty, and for the last 50 years, they have been using it against the people. In Nigeria, the people provide virtually everything for themselves. They drill boreholes for water, and those that can't drill, buy water from those that are opportuned to have. There is no constant electricity; so the people also provide for themselves. They buy generators and fuel them. 

The little electricity the government provides comes at exorbitant prices. Nigerians pay more in electricity, than they pay in house rent. Building of personal house is done by rich individuals, with the poor renting them. The government does nothing for the people. They only sell crude oil and loot the money. Borrow from China and loot the money.

You have a government that only knows how to use the poor to massively tax their fellow poor people. A government that uses the Army and police to keep harassing, kill and terrorise the people. When you say enough is enough and criticize the government, you are whisked away by these government terrorists in uniform. 

Everyday you watch the Fulani herdsmen killing, wiping and occupying villages with impunity. Police and military men protect killer-herdsmen against the victims. Soldiers kill police men and release a notorious kidnapper simply because he is a Fulani man.

Is this the type of country you are proud of? Can't you see that Nigeria is not working? For how long are you going to continue allowing these politicians and their paid agents fool you? You don't have a government. You have a group of bloodthirsty men who are ready to do everything, including killing us all just to maintain their looting-field called One Nigeria. 

And we must confront them all. In doing this, we must understand that the problem is neither APC nor PDP, but One Nigeria. We must end One Nigeria through referendum for the sake of all indigenous people trapped in the contraption. But where they refused peace, we should be ready to take it by force.

Our generation cannot fail this time.

Written By Elochukwu Ohagi

(A Philosopher, Teacher And Activist)

Edited By Paul Ihechi Alagba

For Family Writers Press International.